There is a particular image that I found over a decade ago – I believe I originally came across it on the website for Hagerty classic car insurance – that has stayed with me since I first saw it. I love and cherish this picture, because something about it is extremely evocative to me. It is an image of a kid who – in every way – could have been me! This composition, called “Car Kid Bedroom,” shows a boy who appears to be around 13 or 14 years old, sitting on the shag carpet of the woodgrain formica-paneled bedroom of what would have been a typical suburban house of its era, playing with a Tyco slot car set, and, from the Mercedes-Benz LeMans reproduction poster to the image of Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock to the Hot Wheels wheel-shaped car case to the stack of Hot Rod magazines, he is surrounded by ephemera that looks exactly like my own bedroom looked when I was that age! I’m choosing this image to kick off this nostalgic post to remind y’all that just because this particular entry at thunderjetheaven.com is not about slot cars or die-casts, or cars at all, it definitely belongs on this blog: it’s an “Out of the Slot” entry, for sure, but its focus on the days of our youth is right in-line with what this blog was designed from the outset to represent! I bet your bedroom looked a lot like this when you were a kid, too!
I’m deviating WAAAAY off topic for this one, dear readers…and on a Sunday, even! And yet, is it really that much of a deviation? If you’re anywhere near my age, get ready to relive a taste sensation…even if only in your mind!
Funny thing about that…we know that even long-latent memories can be triggered by the strangest things-sometimes we don’t even know what the trigger is-and for me, at least, it seems like that’s happening more as I age. Flavors are one of those ghostly things that the mind has troubles conjuring up. I don’t think a flavor is quite as ethereal as a smell; most people seem able to remember the taste of things well enough to describe it to someone…but when you think about it, can you really taste something in your memory? And if you can, what foods from your youth would you most like to taste again…now that they’re gone?
There are a thousand ways to measure time passing. You can look at old photos, listen to songs that take you back, or use your mind to walk through a mall that isn’t there anymore. But for me, one of the surest ways is food. Not the staples you can still buy — Coke, Doritos, Oreos. I mean the things that vanished. The snacks, candy bars, and sodas that carried us through childhood afternoons and teenage nights, and then one day just… stopped being there.
This is a trip back to the supermarket aisles and freezer cases of the ’70s and ’80s, where some of the best-tasting things we grew up with are gone. For me personally, there are 2 things in particular that I miss most…
Morton Honey Buns
The first thing I think of is Morton Honey Buns. My mom used to make them for breakfast for me and my sister going back about as far as I can remember, always smothered with butter and then baked in the oven before school. They came out of the oven hot and sticky, and along with a glass of morning milk, they would just melt in your mouth. That was a whole morning right there. You can still find variations of “honey buns” now, but nothing like the Morton’s; they had a crisp outside when cooked just right, a gooey center, and they were just the right amount of carbs and sugar to get a 10 year old up and out the door for school. I’d give anything for one more plate of those.
Pepperidge Farms Croissant Pizzas
By the time I was a teenager, I had graduated to late-night solo meals, and for a while that meant Pepperidge Farms Croissant Pizzas: buttery, flaky layers wrapped around gooey cheese and sauce. I practically lived on them. I ate them almost every night for a couple of years. Some of the happiest memories of my entire life were late nights in 1990, when I was 18 and finally out of high school, staying up late to watch re-runs of Remington Steele and scarfing down a crispy PF croissant pizza that had been in the oven for 25 minutes. They vanished sometime in the ’90s, and nothing since has hit the same spot. That was my teenage comfort food, and it’s gone.
But That’s Not All!
The Snack Oddballs
Hostess Choco-diles were another one: Basically a chocolate-covered Twinkie, but with a mythology all their own. If you grew up on the West Coast, you knew them. If you didn’t, you might not even believe they existed. The jingle said it all: “It takes a while to eat a Chocodile!” For a brief time they came back, but the magic was in those original runs, where you almost felt like you were getting away with something just by eating one.
“It takes a while to eat a Choco-dile!”
Jason jogged my memory about another regional one from his childhood: Nalley Crunchi-O’s — crunchy potato rings in a canister. They were like the love child of onion rings and potato chips. He and his sister used to crunch on those on family camping trips when they were kids in the Anchorage area, and apparently they were regional to the Pacific Northwest. Regional, short-lived, and forgotten by the world at large, but part of his little corner of it.
And then there were Jell-O Pudding Pops — every freezer had them in the mid-’80s, and every kid wanted them. The commercials with Bill Cosby made them look irresistible! Fudgy, creamy, frozen pudding on a stick. They burned bright for a few years and then disappeared.
The Candy Aisle
The Marathon Bar is the king of the lost candy bars. Eight inches of braided caramel covered in chocolate, stretched across its wrapper like a dare. The commercials went heavy on that gimmick — Patrick Wayne showing it off like Excalibur. Discontinued in ’81, but it left a mark.
Choco-Lite was Nestlé’s bubbly chocolate bar, filled with tiny air pockets. Light, crunchy, and pitched as “space-age” chocolate for the future. It didn’t last long, but it had a flavor and texture that nothing since has really matched.
Chunky was technically never gone — it’s still around in corners — but it was way more common in the ’70s. A brick of chocolate studded with peanuts and raisins, wrapped in foil, heavy enough to use as a paperweight. A bar that made no apologies for being ugly and dense.
The Cola Wars (and Their Cousins)
Now, Coke and Pepsi were the titans, of course. The Cola Wars were raging on TV commercials, with Michael Jackson shilling Pepsi and Mean Joe Greene tossing his Coke jersey to a kid. But outside that battle, there was a whole world of “other colas.”
My mom used to buy C&C Cola because it was cheap. I only ever saw it in cans, never bottles. They had this pinkish-red and white design that still sticks in my memory. It wasn’t bad, it wasn’t great, but it was ours. I even remember the commercial for it, which specifically called it out as a more affordable alternative to Coke or Pepsi.
RC Cola was the most famous of the second-tier sodas. Always the underdog, but it had its loyalists. You’d see it at picnics and barbecues, and they had a long-gone diet version called “RC 100” that also had an unforgettable ad that I still love to this day.
And then there was Shasta, which is technically still around, but the commercials are what made it legendary. If you were a kid in the ’80s, you can probably still hear it in your head:
“Don’t give me that same old cola, that so-so soda, I wanna rock n’ rolla! I want a pop! I want a Shasta!”
They had every flavor under the sun, in loud, colorful cans. Shasta felt fun and a little rebellious, like the cola version of roller skating in neon.
And finally, Capri Sun — not a cola, but worth mentioning. It was exotic back then, in its foil pouch, imported from Germany. I never liked the taste, but I remember the hype. The commercials made it look like something astronauts would drink.
Eatin’ Your Nostalgia…
For me, it all comes back to the Morton Honey Buns and the Pepperidge Farm Croissant Pizzas. Those were my anchors — childhood mornings and teenage nights. They’re gone, but the memories are still baked in, and that’s the magic of these vanished foods. Back then, they were just snacks. Now? If you could eat one of these today, it would be a time machine in your mouf!
This brought back some memories like the Shasta Root Beer (Root Beer was always my favorite!). The choc o dials and the whatchamacallits were ones I remember but had forgotten!